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Doctor Who – Sci-Fi’s Longest Running Television Series Ever!

Back in 1963 when the first episode of Doctor who aired on BBC television in the United Kingdom, who would have thought that this small budget science fiction series would become the longest running science fiction series of all time and eventually have several spin-offs? The success and popularity of Doctor Who over the years has simply been amassing!

Today in all the mayor English speaking countries most people will have at least heard of Doctor Who. The countries where Doctor Who has been most successful are the United Kingdom, New Zeeland, Australia and the United States. There exist totally dedicated fan groups in all these countries, most are accessible via the World Wide Web. The web has become one of the best places to access the Doctor Who world, with 100s of dedicated websites about anything from simple Doctor Who news and episode reviews to props collecting and other merchandise!

The fan base for Doctor Who, after it’s around 44 years is considerable; as a result there exist literarily 100s of fan made episodes even some films. On the Would Wide Web you can find pages that list lots of the episodes.

The BBC in response to Doctor Who’s popularity, expanded the series to radio and to Audio book. The radio was used as a way to allow some of the past Doctors to play the role once more, in totally new stories written especially for radio and later made available in audio book format. Doctor Who audio books, in addition to covering radio episodes, have also covered lots of the old original episodes, lost episodes, the new Doctor Who series and Torchwood and even episodes written exclusively for audio book! The first ever Doctor Who audio books were available to the public in the mid seventies on tape and LP, now days there are currently over 50 titles available!

Most of the first Audio books were in simple doctor who soundtrack form from the original television series with linking narration by the Drs., but due to there popularity it wasn’t long before the BBC were bringing out the radio episodes and the original audio book episodes. More recently the BBC has been taking the opportunity to use the audio book format as a way of preserving the lost television episodes by making them available to the public once more. They have also just recently been bringing out audio books for the new series and Torchwood. Doctor who soundtrack audio books are the most economical with prices for downloadable versions as low as 13 $!

But the BBC haven’t been the only ones making Doctor Who audio books, there is also a company named big finish who have for some time now been making their own audio books with original content!

Now it’s up to the likes of the new doctor who series and the two Doctor Who spin-offs, “Torchwood” and “The Sarah Jane Adventures” to live up to doctor who’s incredibly successful past. So far it would appear that they are on the right track as the shows are proving to be very popular indeed with episodes being broadcast all over the globe.